The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens

The governance of the political and economic world order builds on a complex architecture of international treaties at various geographical scales. In a historical phase of high institutional turbulence, assessing the stability of such architecture with respect to the unilateral defection of single...

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Main Authors: Pier Luigi Sacco, Alex Arenas, Manlio De Domenico
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2023-01-01
Series:Complexity
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2023/5280604
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author Pier Luigi Sacco
Alex Arenas
Manlio De Domenico
author_facet Pier Luigi Sacco
Alex Arenas
Manlio De Domenico
author_sort Pier Luigi Sacco
collection DOAJ
description The governance of the political and economic world order builds on a complex architecture of international treaties at various geographical scales. In a historical phase of high institutional turbulence, assessing the stability of such architecture with respect to the unilateral defection of single countries and the breakdown of single treaties is important. We carry out this analysis on the whole global architecture and find that the countries with the highest disruption potential are mostly medium-small and micro countries. Political stability is highly dependent on many former colonial overseas territories that are today part of the global network of fiscal havens, as well as on emerging economies, mostly from South-East Asia. Economic stability depends on medium-sized European and African countries. Single global treaties have surprisingly less disruptive potential, with the major exception of the WTO. Our results suggest that the potential fragility of the world order seems to be more directly related to global inequality and fiscal injustice than commonly believed and that the legacy of the colonial world order is still strong in the current international relations scenario. In particular, vested interests related to tax avoidance seem to have a structural role in the political architecture of global governance.
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spelling doaj-art-283bf333c3a84ccd857dfe994a96a7e62025-08-20T02:04:17ZengWileyComplexity1099-05262023-01-01202310.1155/2023/5280604The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal HavensPier Luigi Sacco0Alex Arenas1Manlio De Domenico2DiSFiPEQSchool of Computer Science and MathematicsDepartment of Physics and Astronomy “Galileo Galilei”The governance of the political and economic world order builds on a complex architecture of international treaties at various geographical scales. In a historical phase of high institutional turbulence, assessing the stability of such architecture with respect to the unilateral defection of single countries and the breakdown of single treaties is important. We carry out this analysis on the whole global architecture and find that the countries with the highest disruption potential are mostly medium-small and micro countries. Political stability is highly dependent on many former colonial overseas territories that are today part of the global network of fiscal havens, as well as on emerging economies, mostly from South-East Asia. Economic stability depends on medium-sized European and African countries. Single global treaties have surprisingly less disruptive potential, with the major exception of the WTO. Our results suggest that the potential fragility of the world order seems to be more directly related to global inequality and fiscal injustice than commonly believed and that the legacy of the colonial world order is still strong in the current international relations scenario. In particular, vested interests related to tax avoidance seem to have a structural role in the political architecture of global governance.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2023/5280604
spellingShingle Pier Luigi Sacco
Alex Arenas
Manlio De Domenico
The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens
Complexity
title The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens
title_full The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens
title_fullStr The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens
title_full_unstemmed The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens
title_short The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens
title_sort resilience of the multirelational structure of geopolitical treaties is critically linked to past colonial world order and offshore fiscal havens
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2023/5280604
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